


Greed

by themus



Series: 7 Deadly Sins [3]
Category: The OC
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Explicit Language, Gen, Heavy Angst, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-05
Updated: 2008-03-05
Packaged: 2019-02-23 02:09:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13180167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themus/pseuds/themus
Summary: Seth never stopped Ryan from running away at the beginning of 102 The Model Home.





	Greed

**  
**  
GREED: 

_excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions._

 

 

 

He only starts it because he's bored. Because although the strengthening chill breeze blowing in from the desert promises a cool winter, the past few weeks have been especially muggy, as if the summer has been pushing out the last of its strength as it dies. And days like these make everything seem lazy and without consequence, rolling forward in slow motion.  
  
He only starts because all summer he's been sitting on this stupid decaying wall with nothing better to do than smoke and talk shit with his friends and when the kid walks by – head down and eyes studiously fixed on the sidewalk in front of him, looking so obviously like he belongs anywhere but here – José senses the chance for something different.  
  
So he tugs a soggy joint from his mouth and squints over as the kid nears him, footsteps faltering slightly.  
  
"Hey, kid!  You got change for the payphone?"  
  
But the kid just walks on past him, shooting a nervous look across the street where construction – abandoned for the weekend – has ripped a two hundred foot hole through the scarred blacktop and left a staggered line of orange cones for the scavengers.  
  
José stands from the low brick wall, finds himself posturing unconsciously – chest puffed out, swaggering - angry at being ignored. “Hey, kid! I'm talking to you.”  
  
Even though it's slight, he catches the hesitation in the kid's step before he comes to a full stop and turns warily.  His features are exaggerated in the hazy sienna of sunset; cheekbone and nose bronzed while his eyes fall in deep shadow.  
  
"You got change?" José asks again.

 

 

  
"Sorry.” The kid shakes his head no and carries on walking. His hand tightens on the strap of the worn backpack which he has slung over one shoulder.

It doesn't look like anything much; it's not designer and the store-brand logo is covered with the desert sand that gets thrown up whenever there's a slight wind, plus one of the straps is torn at the bottom, hanging loose. But the gesture is protective. As if the pajiera thinks he's about to be robbed or something. And that pisses José off, because he gets that same attitude from all the yuppies who drive through this neighbourhood every morning to get to their midtown offices – that preoccupied anxious look which says they wouldn't be caught dead here if they didn't have to beat the traffic on the I-10 westbound.  
  
He frowns and moves forward, getting in front of the kid with his hands raised to chest height, ready to body check if he has to.  The kid halts and backs up, shuffling awkwardly.

  
"You don't got any change?” José demands.  Not even a couple of dimes?  Or do you just not want to give any to _me_?" he spits, flapping the fingers of one hand inward towards himself. His boys, lounging on the wall and against the rugged breezeblock of the disused 711 behind it, give a chorus of warning 'Oh's and swap amused glances.

"You better watch out, white boy," one of them sing-songs, kicking the heel of his sneaker against the crumbling wall pillar. “You piss him off, he'll mess you up good.”

"Am I not good enough to give your money to?" He tugs at the hem of his unbuttoned blue work shirt, rolling his shoulders as he steps forward again. “Am I too blue-collar for you? Or maybe I'm just a bit too tanned, huh, chingado?”

"I don't _have_ any money," the kid snaps, visibly bristling at the insult.

As if anyone ever walks around without any change, especially when they're carrying the world in their backpack.

“You don't even got a fucking dollar? I just wanna use the payphone to call my girl.”

The kid's face twitches, but José can tell that he's intimidated and pissed off because his breathing is too rapid to explain away now.

And if it's one thing José Jorquera despises, it's being lied to by scared white motherfuckers who think they're better than him. So he steps forward again, grinding a fist into an open palm, openly sizing the other boy up as he squares his shoulders. Four pairs of feet shuffle to upright to the side of them.

"You think I'm gonna mug you or something just coz I'm not white?  You should have thought of that before you walked into my part of town and insulted me, bro."

The next movement is subtle enough that José shouldn't notice, because the muted caution on the kid's face doesn't change at all. And maybe it's just the awkward flare of the light off the kid's steel-toed boots, or the ripple in the ebony shadow beneath him, but José _does_ notice when the kid shifts again – a minute two-step with his feet – and his hand slides down the strap of his backpack, fingers flexing around it into a better grip.

The stupid bitch is getting ready to run.

Over what? Pride? The scraps of change in the pocket of his ragged black jeans? The contents of his worn backpack?

José snorts, staring at the kid a moment longer, and reaches out his hand. “That's a nice bag,” he sneers sarcastically, “mind if I take a look?” The kid has been overly protective of it, and he's curious, despite himself, of what the kid is trying to hide. And if he happens to find some interesting drugs, well . . .

The kid eyes him, chewing on his bottom lip, then shifts his gaze to the other boys, quietly assessing each of them. He sighs and his shoulders droop in defeat, stringy muscles going slack under his baggy brown t-shirt. “All right,” he mutters. And José can hear the pure exhaustion in his voice. “Here.” He slips the backpack off his shoulder and holds it out. José shifts forward to grab it, snatching at the strap just above the kid's hand and pulling it towards himself. He's off balance, weight resting on the ball of his right foot, so when the kid's face hardens and he jerks back forcefully, José stumbles forward.

And suddenly there's a knife at his throat. The kid's hand is shaking with adrenaline and the knife shimmers with flame in the light of the sunset as the kid rotates around him, putting José between himself and the other teens.

“Just leave me alone,” the kid whispers, holding the blade a steady half-inch away from José's windpipe. He tugs at the backpack again and José slowly releases his grip.

The kid's eyes are wide now, pupils dilated like a cat about to pounce, but around the black the irises are a watery blue. The colour is wrong somehow, too pale and washed out, and the eyes are red-rimmed and sunken – deep bruised hollows only exaggerated by the sharp crimson of the dying light.

And then José laughs - because the idea of this starving junkie cracker trying to threaten _him_ with a pocketknife is just too fucking funny.  "Are you some kind of gangster now?  What are you planning to do with that?" he asks, cocking his head to the side. "That pansy little switchblade wouldn't scare my baby sister."

"Just leave me alone," the kid repeats, but his eyes flash fear and José can tell, from the nervous twitch in the kid's bony wrist, that the shaking isn't all from adrenaline now.

"You hear that?" Josémocks, turning to his boys. "He wants us to 'leave him alone'."  
He expects the kid to run while he has his head turned, counts on the chance of escape to divert the punk's attention for just a moment; so while the kid is tensing, eyes focusing on the far end of the street, in that moment before he can tell his muscles to break into a run, José whips back around and kicks out at him. His foot connects solidly with the kid's wrist, which snaps back as he spins wildly from the unexpected blow, knife flying out of his hand and down the street.  José catches the glint as it hits the cover of a storm drain and sticks there, the blade jutting out like a shark's tooth.

He punches the kid before he can gain his balance again – a sharp right hook to the jaw that sends him sprawling. And then he's at the centre of a whirlwind of fists and boots, and José can only see parts of him - a knee, a scraped and bloody elbow - as he curls up to protect himself.

The backpack is on the ground now, tipped onto its side and José grabs it up, fumbling to undo the broken zipper.  It's mostly clothes - stained, worn and faded to an almost uniform shade of grey.  There is an almost full packet of cigarettes which José slips into his own back pocket, and, digging further down, something soft wrapped carefully in napkins.  José peels at the corner of one of them and uncovers the edge of a half-eaten sandwich  - a BLT on thin white bread which has long gone soggy.  He throws that on the ground in disgust - bread hitting the tarmac with a soft thud, leaking tomato juice onto the gritty surface. At the bottom of the bag is a leather jacket.  Unlike the rest of the clothes it's in good condition, clean and folded carefully away for the hot weather.

"Nice," he exclaims, pulling it out and letting the backpack drop to the ground again.  "This is real leather, too, this must've cost a bomb."

"Don't!"  The word is strangled and hoarse and José looks over in surprise to find the kid motionless on the ground with a foot pressed hard onto the side of his neck, pinning him in place.  He's got a hand under the heel of the boot, but he's just gripping it now, already having exhausted all effort trying to move it.  His face is red and his breathing is harsh and shallow, but he's far from severely messed up.  "Take anything else, just don't take that.  Please," he spits out.

For a moment the kid just looks so fucking pitiful that José almost gives in.  He looks from the kid's bruised face back to the jacket in his hands, holding it up to look at it.  "This is really fucking nice.  Your daddy give this to you?" he sneers.

With that the kid's face snaps back to anger and he starts bucking, trying to dislodge the weight from his neck by driving his feet into the ground for leverage.  "Fuck you.  Give that back."

José slips the jacket on, shrugging until it falls comfortably. "Or what?"  He strides forward and delivers a leisurely kick to the back of the kid's legs, dropping them to the ground again and he stills, panting.  "You know what?  Those are nice boots, too.  And you look about my size."

“Fuck you,” the kid repeats, grinding the words out between clenched teeth. He struggles, briefly, when one of José's boys kneels down and grabs at his feet, unlacing the boots with quick fingers, but it's useless and he knows it, and it isn't long before he gives up again, letting his body collapse bonelessly.

José accepts the boots when they are handed over, letting them hang from his hand by the laces. He doesn't even really want them – it's just one final humiliation, one last proof of his dominance. It feels good to come out on top for once. He taps the kid's leg with the side of his sneaker, smirking, and it spasms in response, the heel of the kid's foot dragging upwards across the asphalt before it drops again. José's eyes snap to it automatically upon the movement and it's then that he notices the strange bulge around the kid's ankle beneath a sock that's so old that it's balding – worn almost through in patches. He kneels down and pats the anomaly, wrinkling his nose at the smell.

The kid twitches again. “Leave me the fuck alone, you prick.”

And José grins, peels the sock down. “And all that time you were lying to me, huh bitch?” He pulls the wad of bills out and stands again, flapping them in his hand. It's a big pile, and most of them are twenties. There are even fifties and hundreds in there, wrinkled only around the edges, brand new from the bank before this bitch got hold of them. “All that time . . . you were fucking lying to me.”

The kid's breath has turned rasping and his hands are trembling again, pushed down against the ground as if that will somehow help him to stand with someone's foot on his neck. The side of one palm is covered with dirt and grit and dripping blood from his elbow and it's smacking into the ground as he shakes, smearing blood everywhere. “Please,” he whispers, choking in desperate air, “please, I need that.”

José nods, slapping the money against his thumb. “Too bad, bitch. Now maybe if you hadn't disrespected me by lying . . . I'd let you keep some of it. As it is, looks like I'm in for a good night with my girl. Maybe a nice dress, one of them fancy restaurants, a hotel. But hey, I'm a generous guy.” He peels a note from the top of the pile and drops it on the kid's chest. “Why don't you buy yourself a new pair of shoes. On me.”

He laughs and walks away, sharing some of the notes out between his boys before shoving the rest into his pocket. He's halfway through one of the kid's cigarettes when he reaches the corner, and as they turn he glances back, just once, to see the kid sitting in the middle of the street, the single twenty dollar bill clutched in a grimy hand. He is hunched forward, blood seeping from his elbow into his t-shirt, shoulders shaking soundlessly.

He looks impossibly fragile under his baggy clothes, curled up into himself – an insignificant silhouette in an empty expanse of concrete and chain link fencing. Then the sunset flares once, casting him in sharp red, and as José turns away it dies, shuttering the world in black.


End file.
